lost time (is never found again)
by hollyhobbit101
Summary: They tell Peter it's been five years. He doesn't really register it the first time around, but he finds the world hasn't changed all that much. The changes, it seems, are in the little things.


**This is kind of just a word dump because I was feeling Sad after Endgame, but have some angsty Peter because that boy is not fine. Spoilers for Endgame if you've not seen it yet.**

* * *

They tell him it's been five years.

He doesn't really process it the first time around. It all happens so fast - waking up, Dr Strange opening the portal, the battle - that he barely even registers what's going on. There's something in the way Tony looks at him, the way he hugs him even though they're _not there yet, _that forces Peter to remember he's been gone for _five years_, but then he's fighting again and Tony's dying and Peter just kind of forgets about everything else.

The world, he finds, hasn't really changed all that much. He doesn't know why he's expecting it to, but it makes it all that much harder to remember that he's lost five years of his life. He should have been turning 22 this year. He should be in college. He should be _graduating_.

But he's not.

There are, of course, the monuments scattered all across the world. No one knows what to do with them now that everyone has come back again. Some argue that they should be kept, to remember; others say that it's better to forget.

Peter doesn't want to forget. He _can't _forget, for Tony, but he doesn't like the monuments. _Five years,_ they scream at him. _Five years._

(Once, Peter visited the one in Queens, the one that has his name on. He'd stared at it for a long time, fingers tracing the letters over and over.

_P-E-T-E-R P-A-R-K-E-R,_ until they weren't letters anymore, until he could pretend it wasn't his name lying on the stone.)

(On that same monument, Peter finds out later, is Spider-Man)

Change, in the end, is in the little things.

It's in the way May holds him tight when she first sees him, how her eyes fill with tears and she refuses to let go of him even though Peter's pretty sure she's cracked a rib or two.

It's in the strands of grey in her hair, and the new lines around her eyes.

It's in Morgan, in this innocent young girl, who looks so much like Tony that it breaks Peter's heart.

He finds himself sitting next to her after Tony's funeral, watching everyone else mill around, talking quietly. Peter wonders about joining them, but he doesn't know these people, not really. He doesn't even know how he wound up here, next to Tony Stark's daughter. He thinks maybe Happy had something to do with it, but he's not sure.

"Who are you?" Morgan asks him, and even that simple question twists something in Peter. He wonders if, had he not been snapped, he would have known Morgan. Maybe that's a little presumptuous of him, that Tony would have considered him close enough to be introduced to his daughter, but Peter wonders all the same.

"I'm Peter," he tells her. "I worked with your dad." Of course, that's not quite right. Peter never really _worked _with Tony, but he doesn't know how else to say it. They weren't exactly friends, he and Tony, and Peter doesn't want to tell her he's Spider-Man. Morgan probably doesn't even know who Spider-Man is; he's been dead her entire life.

Morgan nods, in that wise way that young children often do. Then, "Daddy talked about you."

And _that. _

_That's _what finally gets Peter. He hasn't cried since Tony's death, but now the tears come freely, slipping down his cheeks and dripping onto his suit. He buries his head in his hands, but then small arms wind around his shoulders, not quite reaching all the way around his body. Peter looks down through blurred vision at Morgan Stark, clumsily patting her head, feeling a sudden rush of affection for this little girl.

Some time later, May comes, and Happy and Pepper. They don't say anything, but they smile, and Peter can imagine Tony doing the same, wherever he is.

* * *

At school, he can almost forget that five years have passed. He doesn't recognise a lot of the people in his classes, but all the important ones are still there. Ned, MJ, even Flash, although Peter would be lying if he said that he would have missed Flash.

(He wonders if that makes him a bad person, wishing that Flash had survived just so Peter would never have to see him again.

Then he thinks, perhaps it's worse to be glad MJ and Ned didn't.)

Even school has changed, though. Someone else has Peter's locker, the same one he's been using since he started at Midtown. A different kid sits in front of him in Spanish. The graffiti in the restroom stalls is new. Little things.

* * *

It's scenes like this that are the same. He and Ned are sat cross-legged on his bedroom floor, piecing together Ned's new Cloud City LEGO set. MJ is perched on his desk, alternating between calling them nerds and offering advice on where pieces go.

_This _is familiar. _This _is safe.

(Well. The MJ part is new, but it feels like she's been here forever.)

They come round a lot, these days. Sometimes it's both of them; sometimes it's just Ned. Sometimes it's just MJ, although those occasions are rare, and May is always sure to tease him about it after.

Once, when it's only him and Ned, Peter asks what it felt like, being dusted. Ned frowns at him, then shrugs.

"I don't know, I guess it was just like one second I was standing up, and the next I woke up five years later, flat on my back." He shrugs again. "Why? Was it different for you?"

_(If Peter thinks hard enough, he remembers the moment the snap happened._

_Dread in the back of his mind, every hair on his body standing up straight._

_Quill, and the tall man, and the alien girl -_

_His atoms quivering, splitting, burning - _

'_I don't feel so good'_

_Pain - _

_It hurt, why did it hurt, Mr Stark - _

'_I'm sorry')_

"Nah, man," Peter says. "Just curious."

(Peter tries not to think too hard.)

* * *

Peter still wonders, sometimes, what those five years were like. He'll look at May, and imagine her in the apartment, alone. Or on a date with the guy from the Thai place. Or going to work, or out shopping, or even just walking down the street.

_Was she happy?_ he wonders most frequently, though he doesn't ask. He tries not to ask about that time, but whether that's for May's sake or his own, he doesn't know.

In the end, Peter tries to move on. It's not easy; there'll always be reminders of the five years, or the dusting, or Tony. But he tries.

He _lives_, and that, he thinks, is the most important thing.


End file.
